Wooly did a good breakdown of what each player costs us in true terms and that would have been about 20% higher for the year than we are into Van Dijk for.

And that had no purchase option - even if it did we aren't going to pay 110 mil sterling for anyone.

I'm sure that offer would have been available to us had we tried, ultimately it's a price Barca were prepared to acceot. Maybe the 25m was wages too? I was told some time ago (maybe a month or 6 weeks ago) by the same fella who told me last autumn we on a wage reduction summer, that we were initially offered coutinho for 30m euros for 2 seasons. That was Barca's starting point.

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I'm sure that offer would have been available to us had we tried, ultimately it's a price Barca were prepared to acceot. Maybe the 25m was wages too? I was told some time ago (maybe a month or 6 weeks ago) by the same fella who told me last autumn we on a wage reduction summer, that we were initially offered coutinho for 30m euros for 2 seasons. That was Barca's starting point.

Yea, the fee was 25mil pounds for one season, loan and wages. Ridiculous for a player that would probably be an option from the bench more often than not.

Disagree though -- they were hoping to get a couple of clubs interested and certainly thought an English club would come in. Once the window closed there options became very limited and it was a fire sale as there was no way back for him or them at that point.

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Just on Coutinho, was there ever a precedent at Dortmund of Klopp taking a prodigal son back? I think he was gone with Gotze came back in.

Leaving money aside, for a man big on team values, I could see why Klopp might have been reluctant to have anything to do with him again.

Especially if it was a one off, season loan - difficult to be part of that group dynamic under those circumstances. And can't really leave the money part out -- would be exceedingly difficult to have the most expensive player on the team a rental.

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Yea, the fee was 25mil pounds for one season, loan and wages. Ridiculous for a player that would probably be an option from the bench more often than not.

Disagree though -- they were hoping to get a couple of clubs interested and certainly thought an English club would come in. Once the window closed there options became very limited and it was a fire sale as there was no way back for him or them at that point.

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Coutinho has a 120m buy option which no one will exercise because it's a ridiculous amount. In essence, it's a straight up loan which Klopp would never have gone for because it's not a coherent long term decision.

Even if people want to do the "we're broke" argument, we still wouldn't have done it even if it had made financial sense.

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So basically, West Ham's former reserve keeper that was signed on a free is of a significantly lower standard than quite possibly the best keeper in the world right now, and our best ever in living memory?
Quite unbelievable, Jeff.

I love the fact that they call us on false dawns but have 5 every season themselves, they never learn. Crow when your doing really well, or even winning something. Though as you say they beat a few teams and the heads are falling off, for years the same scenario. Comedy gold.

Maybe you should watch Alisson a little more closely when he’s back. His positioning and anticipation is phenomenal, which means he rarely has to pull off ridiculous saves. It most likely wouldn’t have been as difficult a save for him because he would have been lined up better when the shot was taken.
Again, no criticism of Adrian, he’s done a really good job in difficult circumstances.